


Many Miles to Go

by captc2002



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, F/F, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 17:14:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/915896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captc2002/pseuds/captc2002
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Extremely AU.  Canon divergence.  The whole SwanQueen dismissal ticked me off so much I've changed character names.  The personalities should be readily recognizable, though Emma's will be the most different.  I'll provide a guide at the beginning of each chapter to avoid confusion.</p>
<p>Amira, the Ice Queen, has spent her entire life losing, despite all her power, position and magic.  Sometimes the lost need a guide or a champion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Downfall

A.N.: First OUAT fanfic. Extremely AU. No Storybrooke. The curse has been changed. The familial relationship between Regina and Snow has also been changed. Plus, the whole dismissal of SwanQueen ticked me off so much I changed the names of the characters. You should recognized their personalities, but I'll provide a guide: Amira (Arabic for Princess) = Regina; Medrot (a bastardization of Mordred) = Rumplestiltskin. As other canon characters appear, I'll add to the guide. Emma will be the most different, personality-wise. Please review. If you hate it or think changing the names was a Cardinal sin, I'll pull the story.

 

**Many thanks to Pam, my beloved beta reader. She's been with me since Voyager fanfic...which gives you a hint at my age.**

 

**Many Miles to Go**

**Chapter 1: Downfall**

 

 

Defeated.

 

It was a feeling that seeped into Amira's bones, slowly devouring her; leaching from the inside out, through the racing pulse in her veins, past the weariness of her muscles, until it poured out of her skin in rivulets of sweat. The battle outside raged on. Smoke and hellfire, blood and banshee-screams formed a discordant orchestra of chaos.

 

Amira knew she should be feeling the sort of mind-numbing despair that sent lunatics howling at the moon…but all she felt was rage. White-hot, roaring with the voice of a thousand lions, it coursed through her as lightning through a rooted tree, burning, burning, burning. It fueled her magic. Her eyeballs remained fixed upon her opponent, Medrot. Even as he prepared another spell, his tiny beetle-black eyes glinting with the flickering white starlight of triumph, she, in her turn, prepared to counter. The Salau had two legs and two arms, but still seemed to slither, quicksilver smooth, now left, then right, like a serpent. His tight red cap was slowing turning from crimson to brown, brown to black, as the fresh blood he dipped it in dried. Hands that terminated in long, skinny, spider-leg digits flexed, twitched, gestured as they drew glyphs in the air.

 

She rallied. Fury was an easy ally, the deep pit of molten wrath that fueled her volcano of magical energy was a bottomless rift in her soul.

 

His fireball slammed against her shielding. Crackles of energy skittered. The eldritch power woven into Medrot's magical tapestry was rent asunder into a million-million glowing threads that tap danced a dark melody around her invisible protection.

 

"Such an apt pupil, dearie," the dark fairy cackled, his voice seeming to carry with it the stench of moldering leaves and decaying carcasses. "Pity your army couldn't measure up."

 

All she offered him was a frigid, feral smile. True though his words were, she would never consent to offer him the satisfaction of agreement. She conjured up a death curse. It wouldn't work, of course. The fae could not be killed by magic, but the thrill of its intricacies, the ecstasy born within the pulse of power, raw, but channeled; rarified and intoxicating, was reward enough. Better yet, Medrot would have to defend against it for while this magic could never kill him, it would drain him empty of magic as a dried cornhusk long after harvest…and that, he could not afford.

 

While he gesticulated a defense, Amira quickly assessed her surroundings. Her forces were not retreating. "Retreat" was too orderly a word and implied that rank, file and decorum were maintained. This was a rout. The line of infantry had fallen and Phineas' cavalry decimated them as they fled. Her ears heard the moaning wind carry the sickening crunch of bone and the water-wet rending of flesh beneath iron-shod hooves.

 

Medrot shattered her spell into myriad, glittering fireflies of lights. His grin revealed teeth blackened by time and stained by blood. They were pointed, needle-sharp and glistened in the harsh light of the afternoon sun. Time-worn wrinkles crinkled about his eyes, accentuating the untamed cruelty of his expression.

 

Unsurprisingly he tsked, "Come, come. A death spell? Surely I taught you better."

 

Once more they circled one another. Once more their eyes locked in a silent contest of commitment.

 

Amira's guard held their ground. They were loyal. Just at her back, Belsior growled deep, a rumbling, gravelly sound that vibrated like ancient rock when the earth quaked. Through his keen, wolf nostrils, she smelled; through his ears, she heard, and through his eyes, she saw the crumbling of her forces. Men, once proud to bear her banner, ran like children from a frightful fiend. Only her personal guard remained true. Swords glittered, rattled, clamored as they fended off attackers. Belsior prowled behind them, snow-white fur tinged with the blood of men, dripping scarlet droplets from his muzzle. Its honey-sweet, coppery flavor lingered at the back of Amira's throat. Such was the bond of mage and familiar.

 

Dark eyes refocused on Medrot. _Don't worry, dear,_ she thought. _I haven't forgotten about you._

 

Her former teacher was muttering, susurrant words in the unspeakable tongue known only to Salau. She'd heard him use it before, years ago, a rare sort of musical language that was at once as beautiful as a clear, star-filled night, and dreadful as the nameless monsters in a child's imagination.

 

Amira dipped once more into the midnight abyss of anger, that cyclonic pit of lightning, thunder, hatred and loathing that never failed to aid her, and dove deeper, behind and below all emotion, touching the violent ocean of mana, that gossamer energy that flowed in, around, through all creation. Every mage experienced it differently. For Amira, the connection spawned from water, the elusive element that could ride the winds as vapor, drift across land as liquid, and crystallize into mirrored shards of glass. It defied all containment. Eyes drifted closed as she followed the watery flow of mana, honing down, down, down until she could feel the coal-black liquid that coursed through Medrot's veins. Her fists closed. They clenched tight, tighter, tightest; her nails drew droplets of blood from her palms. Tighter still, until she brought the throbbing blood in his fingers to a halt, freezing flesh into stone. The fae wizard's face contorted through child-like befuddlement, to glacial realization, to moonless-night fury...black, dangerous and silent.

 

Oh he tried to push her out. He ground blood-browned porcupine teeth together, features flushing gray with strain, but the finger-hold Amira had gained was more of a death grip. First she stopped the movement of his skinny, spider-leg digits, then she pushed upward to his hands, his wrists, his arms. How many times had she done such magic under his tutelage? Only then it involved hearts, the throbbing drum in the center of man that pounded out the rhythm of their lives, and with each resounding beat sent a pulse of that life outward. Medrot taught her to find that precious center and bring it...ever so slowly...to a halt. They began on criminals, those already condemned to death. As she mastered the art of Blood Magic, the victim pool grew larger. Amira no longer remembered all the faces, all the names.

 

_It makes no difference._

 

The Salau had no hearts. In the end, it was merely a contest of wills: hers driving inward to freeze the ebony ichor that passed for his blood; his shoving back against the invading energy.

 

Stalemate.

 

At the edge of her awareness, Belsior sampled the air. Charcoal flesh; streams, pools, and geysers of blood; salt-sweet tang of sweat, roiling insect-swarms of hot, black smoke...he sifted through with the care of a miner seeking a single fleck of gold in a bucket of sand.

 

There.

 

The perfume-soaked aroma of King Phineas.

 

Amira's lips curved upward in a cruel smile. She'd known he could not resist, could not cower behind his iron-plated, spine-covered wall of infantry. No. He would want to watch her fall, savor her humiliation, become drunk on his triumph. Her kingfish had taken the bait. Now, she need only reel him in closer.

 

The guard-line fractured. Belsior breathed deep, growled low, raised his hackles. An armored warrior had breached the line around her and Medrot. Amira caught only a glimpse of light...blue-tinted and silver. A stray scent caught in Belsior's nose told her that this interloper was female. Belsior lunged forward. Cold fire vomited from his lungs in a frigid, frost-filled, ice-riddled blast that caused grass to freeze into glittering bits of emerald.

 

And still she pushed against Medrot. A drop of blood trickled from her nose, wetting her chapped lips. Her gaze espied Phineas' standard – sun-gold lions, rampant, on a plum-purple background – the king of all beasts against the color of kings. Arrogance was so marvelously predictable

 

_Focus_.

 

Her brown eyes stabbed, locked, welded onto Medrot's glass marble orbs...black within black, dark within dark. The Salau offered up a porcupine smile of sharp teeth. Amira answered with a predatory grin.

 

Still orbiting the periphery of her mind was the continued struggle betwixt Belsior and the nameless she-warrior. The blue-silver glow spoke of power, gleaming from two swords; one in each hand, that scissored flick-flash in the fading light. One of her guard loosed a crossbow bolt. Amira heard the string's harmonic vibration across the tenebrous connection she shared with Belsior. She smelled fresh blood, knew it was from the woman; smiled wider as Belsor’s muscles tensed snare tight, then released in a whisper-whisk of motion. Teeth found flesh through rings of steel and layers of padding. Blood gushed, warm, copperhead fast and honeyed, into Belsior's mouth.

 

Phineas had almost reached them...

 

_Soon..._

 

Pain, without warning, ghost-cold but searing-hot, pierced Amira's heart. She gasped for air, concentration gone.

 

_No._

 

In a moment of anguished comprehension, Amira knew that Belsior had been stabbed. His life-force and life's blood spewed from his body painting the ground crimson and clouding her vision with unshed tears. She spun toward him, knees buckling as if struck by a trebuchet.

 

His body lay still save for one last, labored breath. Kneeling beside him, swords glowing still with that pallid azure light, the woman struggled to her feet. Amira took in her figure, for what it was worth, hidden beneath hauberk and sleeveless surcoat. No features. Somewhere behind helm and coif lay the face of the murderer, a paladin of some worthless god, no doubt. The ghastly light of her blades in the gloaming was proof enough for that.

 

“Belsior,” Amira croaked, voice rendered hoarse by smoke and grief.

 

Too late. His mind was drifting away from hers. She clutched at it in panicked desperation, hands grasping at the air, magic crackling toward his fading spirit. Both came back empty. He was gone.

 

“No.”

 

Amira's whimpered word could be heard by no other.

 

“No.”

 

The hollow within her loomed vast, a deep, empty, dead sea without ship or stars or land.

 

“No.”

 

Her fist slammed against scorched, unyielding soil, willing the ground to tremble, the grass to whither, the moons to topple from the heavens.

_I will kill you,_ she silently vowed, eyes never straying from the warrior's lean frame.

 

Talon-sharp, beetle-leg-brittle fingers closed on her throat, cutting off all thought and stifling her windpipe. Medrot's face leered at her, clouded by fathomless hatred. Scarab-husk eyes bored into hers and the hand became a metal vice.

 

“You worthless bitch,” he hissed, barren breath stinging her face with the smell of leaf-rot and corpses. “We had a bargain.”

 

Dots of darkness danced in her vision. Like onyx stones they avalanched over her eyesight, cloaking, hiding, dragging. At the bottom lay nothingness, a refuge from all pain, all grief. She smiled as the light both within and without, faded away.


	2. Torment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The darkness before dawn...

A.N.: Greshin is an original character. I took the idea of a nurse-maid turned lady's maid to heart. Plus, I'm a softy for Regina. She should have had someone in her corner. You'll see how different the universe is in this chapter. As before, if you hate it, or think the name changes just suck so much that it's no longer OUAT, then I'll pull the story.

 

**Warning: Trigger for abuse. Whipping occurs, but there's no graphic description.**

 

**Thanks again, to Pam for being my beta reader. She's the bomb.**

 

**Many Miles to Go  
Chapter 2: Torment**

 

The sun's red embrace was but a caress of fingertips on the horizon, and one of Trinestra's moons was already rising, casting pale silver across the land. Greshin peered out from behind a large oak tree and gazed across the ruined plain, blood-soaked, body-strewn. Smells of burnt skin, leather, fur, and hair crept into her nostrils. Scent was the most subtle of the senses. You couldn't avoid it. The eye could not see; the ear could not hear. You merely drew breath and it was too late, good or bad, sweet or foul.

 

When the Queen's army had begun its retreat, Greshin hid herself in a small stand of trees. At nigh on 54, she was too old to run, anyway. Strands of hair that once flowed like a waterfall of warm brown water, had gone grey beneath the merciless paintbrush of time. Even were she young enough, to leave was unthinkable. Amira was her Lady.

 

Greshin's vision, as with the rest of her body, was not what once it was. Things that once seemed near enough to touch with a sweep of the arm were rendered blurred and cloudy as if covered by a fine coating of ash. Even so, she spied the firefly-dots of torchlight parading closer. King Phineas led the procession. His features, now in shadow, now alight from flickering flame, wax-melted into shiftings masks of cruel gloating, intoxicated triumph, and monstrous anticipation. Here he was, master of a great circus. His audience was a dark, amorphous mass of men, horses, siege engines, tents and yellow-gold campfires which defined the boundary of his army, stretched out in the gathering darkness, tiny ants with swords for pincers and lances for stings.

 

Just behind him, illuminated by the orange, scarlet, amber fire of torches, came two mounted knights. Armor glittered. Spurs jingled. A pole rested on their shoulders and dangling down from it, suspended by shackles was Greshin's Queen. Limp, lifeless, head lolling with every step of the great destriers, ..she seemed but a stringless puppet.

 

Nobles followed after, swaddled in silk, hiding their faces and cowardice beneath vibrant banners and jewel-encrusted swords. Not a one of them had drawn blood in this or any other battle. This Greshin knew with certainty. They lusted for it, though, lusted with the madness of wild boars in mating season.

 

“Behold,” Phneas shrield, arms rising skyward, lifting his voice across the gloom, calling out to the clanking agglomeration of men and metal, “The Ice Queen has fallen!”

 

His rapt spectators responded with a cheer which, though born of human lungs, roared across the blood-stained, body-laden, smoldering wreck that was once an open plain of lush, verdant grass. It vented hatred, seethed vengeance, and craved fresh meat, as the sound of it grew legs and stomped-trampled over the land with all the fury of a grieving dragon.

 

Greshin's eyes followed the sound as it rolled, tumbled, clambered pell-mell toward an area not 50 yards from her hiding place...where a new theater was being erected... Two men were tamping dirt around a hastily erected post. Working by lantern-light, they'd dug the hole, cut a tree, planted its corpse and filled it in as if the fiendish hounds of the underworld were gnawing at their heels. A third man stretched high, one hand with a gleaming iron spike, the other a dull, heavy hammer. The bang-clang rhythm which followed, rapid as a coward's heartbeat, told her in staccato drumbeats that here was a whipping post.

 

_King Phineas will have his revenge..._

 

Hands trembled. Eyes squeezed shut. If only she had the strength of her youth... No. There was no lying; it was as useless as her aching joints and weary muscles. Neither youth nor strength could save Her Lady now.

 

Scalding tears—angry, sad, helpless, resentful—singed the edges of her eyes before spilling over to make rivers of the wrinkles on her face. Greshin wiped them away on her sleeve.

 

The great chain of torchlight wended its way near, circling round the wooden pole. Cloaked servants, bent over with chairs and wine and bags scrambled to the perimeter, worker bees preparing a proper seat for their king. As Phineas dismounted and strolled blithely to his make-shift throne, his two lap-dog knights dropped Queen Amira at the center of things, leaving her crumpled in a heap of tattered clothing, tangled brown hair, and bruised flesh.

 

Near Phineas was that cur, Medrot, all pointy knees and elbows, with pointier fingers. The fairy had soaked his skull-cap in fresh blood, for it shimmered with liquid rubies 'neath the pale moon and warm fires.

 

Bile rose in Greshin's throat. Her hand strayed to a small, bone-handled dagger and she wished for the ten thousandth time that she could slit the Salau's throat.

 

“Wake her,” commanded Phineas to his fae-pet.

 

Black widow hands spun a silent web of poison magic, and Her Lady stirred. Confusion painted itself in uncertain watercolors across Amira's face, only to be covered over by the vibrant oils of rage and contempt. The twin knights, hidden beneath chain mail and helmets, jerked the deposed queen roughly to her knees, pushing down on her slender shoulders with enough force to prevent her from rising. And of course, Her Lady gave her conqueror a toothy-bestial grin.

 

“Brother Phineas,” she crooned, honey-sweet words that dripped sarcasm, “How very nice to see you again, dear.”

 

Though his back was to Greshin's hiding place, the soft night wind carried his mirthless, dead-leaf giggle to her ears. "So defiant," he tee-heed, and took a gilded goblet from one of his drones. A long draught, and satisfied pig's-belch later, he settled back into the heavy wooden chair that served as a throne.

 

Standing torches cast ochre light upon the scene...a stark counterpoint to the zephyrs of argent which drifted gracefully down from the fullness of Trinestra's largest moon. Serving wenches carried clay pitchers of wine to the throng of gawking nobles gathered at the fringes of fire-light, peacock-colored buzzards waiting for fresh or rotting carrion. That lot cared not a whit for the age of the meat, nor its innocence, so long as their hunger for agonal entertainment was sated.

 

One of them, a corpulent swine on two legs with an elaborate hat of silken plumage, handed a rolled parchment to Phineas. Rising from his throne, the squint-eyed king cleared his cast-iron throat of oil, and stretched forth the document in a flourish worthy of coach horns. “Queen Amira of Summerland,” he bayed at the silvery moon, a hound announcing the scent of prey. “You have been tried in absentia by High King Charment and found guilty of the following crimes:” His pack of pampered dogs shifted, growling in anticipation of the kill.

 

“You have cursed an entire realm to eternal winter, and illegally changed the name of my family’s rightful property from Summerland to Wintermir.”

 

All noises ceased and the mongrels disguised as nobility all tucked their tails when Her Lady’s arms moved, clinking the cold-iron shackles in a hollow, dull melody that whispered of death. Greshin could feel, rather than see, Amira’s chill smile, but she heard her throaty reply as if the woman stood but inches from her.

 

“Considering all the snow, it seemed a much more fitting moniker,” the queen replied, frost blooming on her words.

 

Phineas continued as if he’d heard naught but the whistle of wind. “You basely murdered King Jarl, my brother, and your own lawful husband.”

 

Greshin was not surprised to hear Her Lady spit upon the ground.

 

_Waste of good water, even to spit for that one,_ she thought darkly, her mind filled with the shadowy images of sledgehammer fists, drunken rants, and nightly raids into Amira’s bedchamber…pillaging and plundering at will. More than once, Greshin had snuck in, like a mouse, fearing Jarl’s wrath if caught, to bind wounds, apply ointments, and catch Her Lady’s falling tears on a comforting shoulder.

 

“The unforgivable killing of your own parents…” Phineas howled on in the night, hot on the trail, excitement speeding his words as he chased down the object of his hunt.

 

“One parent, dear,” Her Lady corrected with sugary-sweetness tinged with arsenic, “one step-mother.”

 

“Who was my aunt.” At his nod, one of the knights struck the queen with a caestus-covered fist and sent her toppling sideways to the unyielding earth.

 

It was Phineas’ turn to spit, hocking up a great wad of sputum onto Amira’s brown locks. Then he continued his victorious reading. “The unlawful execution of countless paladins.”

 

_Please, My Lady. Please._ Greshin begged silently, uselessly. _Say nothing._

 

Of course that was too much to hope for. Submission was not the queen’s way.

 

Amira lifted brown eyes upward, and smiled scarlet through the blood coating her teeth. “Would you care for an exact figure, Phinny?” Her Lady had drawn herself erect, even when forced to kneel, chin up, dark tresses framing a mask carved from the gnarled, knot-ridden wood of hatred. “I’m sure one of my scribes can provide it.”

 

The king merely held up a hand, forestalling another crushing blow from his brutish guards.

 

“And the treasonous attack upon the realm of High King Charment and his wife, your own sister; High Queen Zuri…” He paused in his grim chase down of charges as if willing Amira to reply.

 

She didn’t, and Greshin silently thanked the gods for it.

 

“For these crimes you are hereby sentenced to death by beheading on the first dawn after your capture.” Phineas released the scroll and it danced away in the wind, twirling, rising, falling, until it was lost in the night. He laughed, a dry croak that froze the marrow. “But in the meantime, my dearest sister-in-law, we have time for a reunion.”

 

Greshin closed her eyes tight, willing the wretched tableau playing out between wolf and captive to unmake itself, for the sands of time—just this once—to reverse, flying like ancient dust devils up, up, up in life’s hourglass; to some point, some crossroads, where a single decision…left, right…made or unmade…would bring Her Lady to a different end.

 

Time unraveled itself for no one, not even the strongest of wizards. Its bone-ashes flowed forward with the great river of age and agelessness. There were none who could dam the current.

 

She abandoned her self-imposed blindness in time to see the knights hoist Amira to her feet. They half-carried, half-dragged the proud woman over to the wooden mote in ruined grass. There they hung her by the rattling chain, arms pulled straight up, on the black, splinter of a spike.

 

Phineas retook his wooden throne, flouncing his fur-lined cloak so that it made a halo of white speckled with bits of black diamonds. “Where is the wolf?” he shouted to the hunkering mutts.

 

The nobles sidled uneasily in their own footprints, too nervous to answer, too intimidated to run away. Finally one whimpered, “We know not, my lord. The warrior who killed the beast has not been seen since.” The mangy purebred bowed his head and body down as he crab-waddled back in place.

 

A laugh, low, throaty, filled with toxic joy skittered across the air with insect legs, and wasp wings. Amira’s laugh, Greshin realized. Her Lady’s one fragment of victory—that Phineas could not turn Belsior into a rug, or cloak, or trophy over which to drool in delight.

 

And Phineas became stone still, coiled like a serpent. “Though, one night for such a _joyous_ occasion seems so…impersonal,” his snake tongue pronounced in a hiss. “Still, we must make the most of it.”

 

Beside him, Medrot stood, tall, gangly, droplets of blood leaking from his cap to the stark white tunic he wore. The dark fae had remained silent throughout, but Greshin could fairly hear the gears turning, whirring in his head, fine machines that calculated, weighed, measured and uncovered weakness with the accuracy of the finest archer. Plans inside of plans, wrapped up in intrigue, tied with the black ribbon of betrayal…oh she knew Medrot and his ways.

 

The two jangling guards bedecked in chain mail from shoulder to knee grabbed the worn back of Her Lady’s dress and ripped it downward, exposing the smooth skin of back and buttocks. They stepped back, spurs creating a syncopated ringing to that of their armor. One of them unfurled a whip from his belt.

 

Greshin turned away. Desperation gripped her chest with fiery talons, trebling her pulse, quickening her breath and igniting a firestorm of anxiety. What could she do? Her Lady was to be tortured…raped, no doubt, by Phineas before the end of this eternal, infernal night. Greshin entertained no illusions about the king’s tender mercies. Apples always fell close together when they were fruit of the same tree.

 

The first snap-crack of the lash reverberated amongst the trees, bouncing from every shadowed leaf. No cry of pain followed. Queen Amira would never scream, not again, a vow she’d made after Jarl’s worst beating as she lay battered and bleeding in Greshin’s arms, taking comfort, but seething with rage.

 

No. Her Lady would chew her tongue into sausage e’er she gave Phineas the satisfaction of a single sound.

 

Another lightning strike of leather against flesh, a crack of thunder too small to reach the stars, but too loud to hide from Greshin’s ears.

 

She had to do something. Anything. Even something of which Her Lady would never approve.

 

Clutching at her chest, Greshin’s fingers felt the small lump of crystal suspended from a simple cord, a necklace given to her decades ago by her late father. It was crudely made, just a bit of rock wrapped in string. She’d repaired it dozens of times, but kept it hid from all eyes, even those of the queen. Just a shard of crystal, that gleamed blue, then silver, then blue again when twirled in the light. Against her skin, it always seemed warm and touching it always took her home.

 

“ _This,” her father said, “is a piece of the great rock at the center of our village.”_

 

At the age of twelve, her parents decided that she should enter service. The town was dying, slow and painful, each harvest of the exhausted earth more sparse than the last. The life of a court servant promised meals and shelter, they explained. Greshin heard and understood, but had wept. They, all of them, knew that she would never return.

 

Her father slipped the necklace over her head, then repeated the story he’d told time and again, one she never tired of, one filled with hope amid hopelessness.

 

“ _When I was your age, the village was prosperous. Crops grew, mills ground out flour, we lived in a time of plenty. Tempting it was, too, for the ogres of the western mountains came calling. They stole grain, children, women, goats, anything. We sent out rescuers, but none ever returned. Sometimes a head would be found at the edge of town. Priests prayed. We offered sacrifices to the gods, begging for aid. It was the fist time I lost faith in the gods.”_

 

Crack-bang came the sound of the whip, causing Greshin to flinch in sympathy.

 

Her father had leaned close to her, weather worn face seeming made more of sheepskin than flesh, but his grey-green eyes still twinkled with life and love. _“My grandfather took me to a crossroads one night. It was full dark. ‘Twas but one sliver of Trinestra’s moons in the sky and it looked more like a silver scowl. “Corwin,” says he. “There be but one god left among us mortal men. She ain’t worshipped much, and there be no temples built in her name. Fie on any who would disagree. But my mother remembered, and her mother before, and now I’ll pass it on to you.” He’d brought wheat cakes and stones with him, and placed one of each at every corner made by the meeting paths. “Taarn be her name, the Lost Goddess, the Last Goddess, She Who Refused to Depart. They say she won’t leave the body of her brother, Torim. Remember the Sangforst they sing of in late-night ballads?” Corwin, her father, had grinned then. “As if anyone could forget the Forest of Blood…the vast, haunted wood sprung up from the corpse of The Murdered God._ ”

 

Greshin’s father had shaken his head at the memory.

 

Another strike of the scourge on Her Lady’s back. Blood would be drawn by now, running hot and crimson down tanned skin.

 

“ _My grandfather drew an eight-pointed star into the dust in the center of the intersection. “One for each season,” said he, “and the others the four corners, North, South, West, East…a crossroads in a crossroads. Taarn is a finder of lost things, a guide out of the wilderness. She judges not by good nor evil, but by lost forever or not. Them which can be found and led home, be found and led home. So’s here we be, asking her for aid. If our village be truly lost, then we move on, if not, then may her hand bring us salvation from destruction.”_

 

According to her father, the very next day a warrior came from the North, wearing leather and scale, riding a draft horse that looked more like a fat cheese with legs. His name had been K’Nelm, and he stayed in a barn, worked in the fields, and waited in the darkness. When next the ogres came, K’Nelm fought them, shield and sword against claw and club. Ten ogres he’d killed, sending them away, never to return. He died on that spot, body crushed and mangled beyond all healing, life’s water seeping into the rich loam. They buried him, with his sword marking his gravesite, but then next morning there was a crystal in its place, sprung up from the deepest roots of earth, it gleamed blue-silver beneath both sun and moon. Greshin remembered it well, as if all the years, decades, in between had passed but yesterday.

 

“ _We’ll miss you, little bird,” her mother said, enveloping her in a hug. “Becoming a servant of the king will be a better life than we can offer.” Her father tapped the crystal on her chest. “They’ll be strange folk, the nobles, with stranger gods. Don’t forget us, and always remember who you are.”_

 

Crack! The whip’s cry was filled with daggers, shiny with wet blood.

 

As Greshin sank to her knees, she silently asked for Her Lady’s forgiveness. Queen Amira had outlawed all worship in Wintermir, razed all temples, defaced all divine statues, exiled or executed all priests. Greshin understood, had watched, listened, joined the younger woman as she begged and pleaded to the gods for relief from her suffering; had seen the bitterness take hold of her soul, had witnessed Medrot’s calculated corruption. No. The last thing her majesty would wish would be for Greshin to pray.

 

Yet that was what she did.

 

“Taarn,” she breathed out, starting at the biting sound made by another strike on Her Lady’s back, “Goddess of the Lost.” She pulled out the necklace from its hiding place beneath her garments and held the crystal in one hand. “My father said you are still here, the last of the gods to remain among us.” Her trembling hand took the crystal and drew a line in the bare earth from South to North. “I have no wheat cakes or stone, no offering to give.” Another line was drawn, this one from West to East. The crystal flickered blue as a beam of Trinestra’s moon fell upon it, gentle as a mother’s kiss. “My Lady has lost everything, and she won’t thank me for speaking to you. Nay, she would be furious with old Greshin.” With the cardinal points established, she began the strokes to mark the ordinals. The lines were not perfect, the tremors of her fingers saw to that, but they were clear, crisply outlined, even in the forgiving midnight of evening. “She’s done things, terrible, awful things, but it wasn’t always so. Once she was a child, full of wonder and goodness, sweet, kind, the sort of girl who filled your heart with joy just to see the sparkle in her eyes.” The final line completed, Greshin lay the crystal at the center of the crossroads. “Maybe she deserves to die for what she’s done and maybe she don’t. ‘Tis not for me to say.” Tears fell unchecked down her cheeks and Greshin gathered them like liquid jewels in her hands. “Here are my tear drops, Taarn.” Like rain she sprinkled them onto the glyph. “I do know that she doesn’t deserve to suffer no more. My Lady has suffered enough for any ten of us, mayhap more, and sure as I speak to you, that pain’s what made her lose her way. So, if she can’t be found, grant her a quick death, an arrow, a sword strike, an axe upon the neck, but not this. Not this.”

 

The lash was barking more rapidly than before, a rabid dog snapping at raw meat.

 

“But Taarn, if there be a chance for my ‘Mira to be found again, I beg you to save her.” Crying freely, Greshin showered the crossroads in with teardrops, hoping that this sacrifice, this plea would be answered.

 

She didn’t know what she expected, something, nothing, anything. Opening her eyes, she saw the crystal was gone, felt its cool touch against her skin, hanging as it always had near her heart. Booted feet stood at the North point of her star. Gasping in surprise, she raised her eyes over legs shielded by leather pants, soaked with red from a crossbow bolt that still protruded, stark and straight from thigh. Higher she looked, seeing a plain grey tunic over worn chainmail. Greshin shrank back, scrambled to her feet rabbit-quick, terror moving her muscles and tendons. Her eyes fell upon the shielding helm that obscured all features, but within the shadow, for but a heartbeat, came twin blue-silver flashes of light, like winking stars. They were there and gone so quick, she could have imagined them.

 

The man said nothing, merely inclined his head toward her as if in acknowledgment of her call. That, alone, would have been enough to send her heart fleeing from the cage of her ribs to dash away in the gloom, but there was more. What caused Greshin’s mouth to gape open like a chasm and sent ghost-finger chills skittering down her spine was that on the broad shoulders like a winter-white background to the warrior’s head, was the limp body of Belsior.


	3. Memories

**Author's Note: Thank you for not burning me at the stake for the heresy of changing names. :-) For those of you who have offered encouragement, thank you even more! This chapter probably requires no name guide, but I'll provide one. Zuri means “Snow” and Charment = “Charming.” I don't own OuaT and I wish this really were original fiction, but, alas, I lack that level of creativity. Changing names and circumstances does not an original story make.**

 

Chapter 3: Memories

 

Zuri paced round the nursery in the ambling, aimless manner of a traveler with nowhere to go. Her restless legs took her past several stopping points: a cradle, dark-wooded except where loving hands had worn away the finish on one side, marred by the careless bang-clanging of rattles; a chair, also of hardwood, but with a turkey-plump, goose-down soft cushion for holding a nursing baby; a black oak stand, with silver mirror – a reflective ocean, still, rippleless, quiet as a moonbeam, yet fathomless – an infinite sea of possibility that could capture whatever passed its unblinking stare. She paused a moment, staring back.

 

Her mother had been a red-head, all fire and passion, with a complexion as cool and white as her hair was fiery and dark. Zuri had inherited her alabaster skin. It lay comfortably on her muscles in a smooth blanket of pristine snow, unblemished by freckles or moles. From her father, she had gotten hair the color of coal dust, so black that light, itself, was trapped by its darkness. It was cut short now. A proper lady would never wear it so. Were her mother still breathing, she would surely complain. Still, it made life just a bit easier. Time turned its wheel, grinding seconds into minutes until the fertile wheat field of your life became fine powder, scattered with the barest of breeze. The less time spent primping, the better.

 

Zuri dropped eyes of cerulean blue from her face to the slight swell of her belly. Her dress of emerald brocade hid it, mostly, but soon a new life, innocent, free as a swift-winged hummingbird, would spring up all wide-eyed smiles and squint-eyed wails, and announce itself to the ream of mortals.

 

_And all the while, a battle rages just beyond the horizon…_

 

She walked over to the open window. The courtyard was quiet, taut with watchful waiting. You could see it in the way the guards stood, rocking ever-so-slightly from foot to foot; here a hand reached behind a neck to rub away tension; there a watchman scratched at his nose. Somewhere, hidden behind the opaque veil of night, past the gray-stone, barricaded walls of the keep, the illusion of quiet evening was shredded by the snicker-snack of sword on sword. On one side fought her husband, King Charment of Shield Lands; on the other was her sister, Amira, the Ice Queen.

 

No matter who won the fray, Zuri would lose someone dear.

 

She rubbed her fingers across the promise of life within her. “Your father’s name means ‘fortunate one,’ but I like to call him ‘Charming’ just to tease him. He’ll be home soon. He’s lucky like that, you see.”

 

The alternative was unimaginable. It would be easier to accept that the glowing sun of Pholtin had become a charred cinder leaving Trinestra barren and bereft of all light. Drawing in a shuddering breath, Zuri let herself babble to her unborn child as a means of distraction.

 

“And Amira…well,” she secured the shutters, hiding away from the damp. Her heart was torn, nay, ripped into twain halves, both bleeding. One side pumped only venom, hatred for everything her sister had done, had taken, had ruined. The other side wept worry and cried regret for all that had once been. “You see, she wasn’t always evil. She loved me once. I know she did.”

 

Zuri’s thoughts turned upstream to swim against the currents of time, looking into her memories of happier days.

 

_She’d just turned seven, and Amira was home from the Crystal Citadel, a college of sorcerers. Mother and Father were arguing over marriage arrangements, their words like stinging bees that swarmed the air. Times like these always frightened Zuri. The way her father’s voice boomed through the castle, bouncing off stone, crumbling mortar, vibrating the walls with the force of an earthquake. Her mother’s burring alto sliced each syllable in claw-sharp, rapier-point strikes, wounding with every hit and always, always, always drawing blood._

 

_Greshin and Kaly herded the children outside to the tranquility of the palace gardens. Kaly squeezed Zuri’s shoulder reassuringly. “Come little one,” she urged in a whisper, glancing at Greshin._

 

_This place was Zuri’s secret shelter. Oh, others knew it was there, but no one knew what it was, really; what it meant. Here, there was a special kind of magic born of a child’s imagination, where flowers spoke in silent tongues unknown to man and vines held fast to trees out of love and birds laughed in time with the merry music of the small creek which sang and danced its way over rounded pebbles. Why any moment one of the fairy folk might appear in a twinkling of glitter!_

 

_Today the magic seemed tattered and frayed. The roses were silent; pink, red, yellow petals pulled inward as if seeking shelter from the emotional storm which thundered, hollered, raged, and spewed vitriol into the air. Even the stream’s muffled murmurs could not drown out the fulmination._

 

_Amira settled down beside her, sweeping errant brown locks back behind her ears, a nervous gesture, yet comfortingly familiar. One arm wrapped snuggly around Zuri’s trembling shoulders. She leaned into her sister’s sheltering embrace, hiding scalding tears, but unable to disguise the sniffles._

 

“ _Don’t cry, Snowflake,” ‘Mira placed a honeysuckle kiss into Zuri’s hair, “They’re just fighting again.”_

 

_Zuri wiped her nose with the sleeve of her ruffled dress, not caring what Mother would say if it stained. “I don’t like it,” she confessed in a quaver. “Why can’t we all just be happy?”_

 

_Heaving a long sigh the conveyed agreement her sister did not voice, Amira expelled the weight of the question and her inability to answer. “I don’t think anyone is happy all the time.”_

 

_There was an edge of bitterness and longing to the words._

 

_Something made of glass shattered against granite. Zuri flinched, feeling in that moment how much it must hurt to have all your bits and pieces flying away willy-nilly. Maybe that was what death was like, everything scattering away like dandelion whiskers._

 

“’ _Mira?” Zuri lifted azure orbs to meet the earthy gaze of her sister, “You still love me, right?”_

 

_The older girl’s lips curved upward in a kind smile. “Of course I do, Snowflake, and I always will. Now,” Amira withdrew her arm and began making elaborate gestures with her fingers, “I’m not supposed to do magic without a teacher, but,” her liquid brown eyes twinkled with flickering stars of mischief, “where is the fun in always obeying the rules.”_

 

_The clear water of the bubbling creek lifted up in places, formed, reformed, took on shapes. Transparent ducks glided along its surface, then disappeared to be reborn as crystalline fish that leaped from the water is delightful abandon._

 

_Zuri squealed in delight, “More, ‘Mira. More!”_

 

Such happy days, peppered with the exuberant joy only experienced through the wondering, awestruck heart of a child… It was but a ghost, now, no more real than the imagined songs of roses. The current of life flowed ever forward and Zuri's thoughts yielded to the tidal pull, returning to a present that bore no resemblance to the warm Springtime affection of the past.

 

Two armies, iron and bone, pike and arrow, faced one another in combat, death-grip desperate, no-quarter-asked-or-given warfare, where blood and sweat fell like monsoonal rain.

 

Beside the time-weary cradle was a day bed, sheets the color of eggshell and soft as chick’s down covered it. A crumpled bit of parchment lay in the middle next to a soapstone carving of a swan. She took up the ivory paper, smoothing it. The vitriolic words of her sister’s last missive still scorched Zuri’s eyes with acid-laced phosphorous.

 

“ _My darling Zuri,_

 

_I find it inexplicable that you continue to write when I have repeatedly rebuffed your honeyed overtures of sisterly affection. Perhaps you are more idiotic than I thought…a frightening possibility, or perhaps you are simply arrogant. No matter. The head and heart of the messenger who delivered this letter will accompany my reply and I trust that will clarify matters sufficiently. The days when I needed a sister are long past. Whilst you were intoxicating yourself on the nectar of “true love,” I was feasting on power. You were so focused on your happy ending that you forgot many hands add words to the stories of our lives. Rest assured, my dear, the tale is far from over. I will destroy your fairytale existence, crushing your dreams one by one until you beg for the mercy of death._

 

_Amira_

_Queen of Wintermir”_

 

"I don't know how we reached this pass," she said, voice clogged by the molasses-thick, bramble-briar-needles of grief, longing, and regret.

 

Angrily she wiped away an errant tear. It was too late for weeping, too late for anything, save victory or defeat. "Your father will be home soon." Zuri spoke as if she could wish events into creation, knowing that such power was reserved only for the gods, but praying...just for today...that they would grant her this favor. She crushed the parchment into a ball for the thousandth time and threw it back on the bed. Her trembling fingers grasped the majestic stone bird. It was cunningly wrought, heavy and incapable of flight, but with a wingspan and feathers that could trick the mind into believing the impossible. And in this instant, this heartbeat, she needed to believe that Charming was on his way home.

 

“I was given this as a child,” she told her son or daughter. “I had a secret friend for a little while, a Rover.” The sound of her words took her mind away from the frenetic beating of her heart. What was said was of no more import than the dust kicked up by horses’ hooves. “Her name was Ima Cisne. Cisne is the Rover word for swan. Your father doesn’t know it, but she taught me to pick locks and cut purses. He would be affronted.”

 

_Not that Mother had been exactly pleased to find her perfect daughter being corrupted by a “rogue, vagabond and thief.”_

 

The thick, oaken door of the nursery groaned open and thudded dully against the wall. Zuri spun away from the bed, nearly dropping her sculpture, her pulse racing against an unseen opponent as if life and limb depended on winning.

 

He was handsome even when covered in soot, soil and dried blood. Close-cropped blonde hair grew thick, a straw-yellow field of summer flowers, soft as buttercups. His eyes were the rich blue of the Southern Sea, clear clean to the bottom, teaming with infinite creatures of wondrous beauty.

 

“Charming!” she cried and ran to him, wrapping his body with her arms and his spirit with her heart in an embrace born of emotion so pure that to call it love would be an insult.

 

“Snow.” He whispered the meaning of her name into the raven feathers of her hair.

 

Their lips came together in a soft brush of flesh, melding seamlessly as if carved by a divine hand to fit. Tongues entreated entry and found it. They danced in a waltz played by two hearts. His mouth tasted of ale and salt and smoke, but it was more delicious than any candy ever crafted by a confectioner.

 

The need to breathe made them separate, though they remained close enough to share the same air. Blue met blue across a bridge of warmth and welcome and Zuri blinked back tears of joy.

 

“How did you know I would be in the nursery?”

 

Where once he might have offered up a cocksure grin, tonight his face was somber, reverent the way an acolyte might approach the holiest of altars. “Because I always find you.”

 

It was a promise he never failed to keep.

 

Their embrace, a lattice-work of arms crowned by foreheads touching, lingered the gentle way a rose’s perfumed fragrance remained in the memory long after its petals had fallen.

 

Zuri closed her eyes walling out the world, its smells sights, sounds, the bustling footsteps of servants as they scampered past the open door, the candles that flickered past when they went by, the odors of tallow and wicks… She wanted to be only here, in the arms of her love, solid, warm, real, alive.

 

His sonorous tenor reluctantly broke the peaceful enchantment. “It’s over.” He tightened muscular arms around her waist. “Your sister’s army is in retreat.”

 

“And Amira?” Zuri asked, torn into equal halves of hope and fear, but clueless as to which outcome either favored.

 

“Captured,” Charment replied firmly, “placed in cold-iron shackles to prevent her use of magic, and awaiting execution at dawn.”

 

Relief or disappointment? Even now Zuri’s emotional battle continued.

 

With gentle hands her husband pushed her back far enough to search her eyes. “I know this is hard for you, but the sister you remember is dead, and the witch who occupies her body has dedicated her life to destroying everyone and everything she touches. There’s no prison that can hold her forever, and no land so distant she can’t find a way to return. Phineas will carry out the sentence. I wanted to be here, with you.”

 

She nodded, stepping away from him, her hands absently stroking the grey swan, down the graceful neck, across the open wings, and back. Years of loving fingertips had worn it smooth in places. Alternately a worry stone and a lucky charm, the old gift still held magic for her, even if it wasn’t the sort found in potions and grimiores. It was the only thing she had left of Ima. When Mother found out that her perfect daughter was gallivanting about during the night with “that miscreant hoodlum,” she’d prevailed upon Father to enact a ban on Rovers in the realm. Ima crept into the palace one last time and gifted her the sculpture of her namesake.

 

“ _Oh, Ima, thank you!” Zuri had whispered in the hushed voice used for sacred secrets and lifelong pacts. “I don’t know what to say. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”_

 

_The towheaded girl had chuckled, emerald eyes dancing with wicked gleams of delight. “You just got something from a Rover without paying twice what it was worth. You say, ‘I’m the luckiest gadjo to ever walk the land.’ Got it?” She winked for good effect._

 

The past held so much that was good. It was all too easy to become lost in it, like finding a maze of mirrors, reflecting endlessly, leading nowhere.

 

Finally she murmured to Charment. “I know. I just wish there were some other way.”

 

In two strides he was behind her, hands sliding over her waist to rest upon her womb, offering shelter, promising protection, lending comfort. “We’ve given her so many chances,” he replied in words of velvet clad steel, “more than she deserved. And now,” his fingers splayed over her stomach, “now we have a child to protect.”

 

Zuri melted into the heat of his body, pulling the swan to her chest, resting her chin upon its noble head.

 

“Did she give it to you?”

 

His question startled her the way a movement just at the edge of your vision could bring you to wide-eyed alertness.

 

“No,” she denied, truthfully, because he was referring to Amira.

 

Truth be told, Charming was more than curious about the sculpture. Sometimes he was positively jealous, green with envy and resentful, like Zuri had some secret lover from times gone by that still held sway over a place in her soul.

 

He nuzzled into her neck sending fairy-dust shivers down her spine. “Someday I hope you’ll tell me about it.” Light kisses along her shoulder made Zuri’s pulse heat. “Every time you’re upset or anxious, you pick up that old bird.” His lips stilled and she felt him breathe in her scent, deep, drawing in her essence, savoring it in the way his every movement froze. Then with a sigh, “It means something to you and I wish you trusted me enough to share it.”

 

Trust was never an issue. Zuri pondered the words, let them tumble about in her mind until the rough edges were polished away and they found a quiet place to settle. She left them in their solitude. “I trust you, Charming and I’ll tell you…just not tonight.”

 

The pain in her chest was a vice the size of two great bridges which spanned a vast chasm. Yet, in the sanctuary of his arms, the abyss where her sister used to be didn’t seem so vast, so empty. She could face a world without her sister in it, though she had never yet existed a single second without her. For Charment and so many others, it would be a happier place, because all they’d ever known was the Ice Queen. Sometimes even Zuri forgot there was ever an innocent girl called ‘Mira, the young mage who made water figures dance by wiggling her fingers and chanting incantations, the teen who told her that kissing a boy was like being licked by a mastiff only nicer.

 

“Why does she hate me?” Zuri asked the question aloud, though her husband had no way to know the answer. Her voice broke with the force of sea combers against rock face. Tears streamed from her eyes as the tide of grief crested. “She loved me once.” Desperate words, repeated so often that they had become an incantation – however useless a spell it had proven to be. “I know she did.”

 

Charming pulled her closer, anchoring her through the storm. She let the tears fall down like rain, let the sobs shake her body in claps of thunder, let herself be safely moored in the harbor of her true love’s arms.

 

“It’s going to be all right, Snow,” he promised in a fierce sibilate. “We’re going to be happy again, all of us.”

 

His fervent vow was all that kept Zuri from flying into pieces like pottery shattering on a stone wall.

 

**A/N: We'll be back to the action in the next chapter. Again, folks, thank you.**


	4. Rescue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank all of you for your comments. Sorry for the delayed update. I had despaired somewhat that anyone was reading this story. Here's the next chapter. There won't be so long a delay for the next. I apologize. Thank you to all those who added comments. I'm insecure and require a lot of attention. :-)

Greshin followed the still-silent Taarnite, using the whispered movement of soft-soled boots on leaf-covered earth as guide.

She attempted several times to elicit some sort of conversation, gain some kind of insight into his intentions. “My Lady has a son, Henri. He's not yet eleven and quite handsome.”

Silence.

The man's limp was slight which meant that either that the crossbow bolt had not struck deep, or that this warrior had incredible pain tolerance. Silvered moonlight caused gossamer diamond will o' the wisps to dance a merry hog on Belsior's alabaster fur.

“She loves the boy, you see.” Greshin had to make that point. Taarn might decide Queen Amira hopelessly lost, and her paladin had appeared so quickly, there'd not been time to completely plead the case. “I don't believe anyone capable of a mother's love can be lost forever.”

They didn't go far, for there wasn't far to go. The copse had perhaps five and twenty trees, with just enough brush and briar to lend cover in the forgiving dimness of nightfall. Ne-sharp talons of bramble snagged clothing and skin, clutching, grabbing, reluctantly setting free as if the wood, itself, sought to bind them there.

A small campsite, cold, fireless, with naught but a sleeping roll and two horses to distinguish it from the wild. Greshin's weary eyes adjusted to the shifting of light and shadow caused by a light, baby's breath of breeze as limb and leaf swayed and twirled. 'Twas not two horses, she realized, for one was shorter and stout as an ancient oak...a pony, perhaps?

Her guide shrugged off the pale body of the Winter Wolf with the slightest of effort and lowered it, almost gently, reverently, to the ground. Swords, helm, coif, hauberk, all followed as layers of weaponry and armor were stripped away, rendering shoulders less broad, waist more narrow, and hips... Greshin drew in a quick breath of surprise and clapped her hand across her mouth to cover any sound. The warrior's chest and hips were the pillowed mounds belonging only to women. Pale hair was tied in an intricate knot, a snake of twisting and turning strands the wound and wended its way in, around, through, to swallow its own tail. It was far too dark to distinguish the pattern, but Greshin had walked this earth for nigh on sixty years and had met her share of nomads...enough to recognize that here was a tribe member...enough to know that it would be impolite to ask for a name.

Instead she whispered, “What may I call you, traveler?”

“Kesh.” A single word, soft, strained, hoarse as if blown from a long-neglected flute clogged with rust, dust, and cobwebs.

“Kesh,” Greshin repeated, watching as the other woman reached down and snapped the shaft of the crossbow bolt embedded in her thigh with little more than a quiet grunt of pain. “I am called Greshin,” she added, “and I've some healing skill.”

The paladin spared her a single glance before striding over to a large sack and pulling forth a bow and quiver of arrows. Both were of dull black, reflecting none of Trinestra's argent kisses; the bowstring was ebony and soundless when Kesh plucked it with a careful twitch of a finger.

_These are not the weapons of a paladin._

Greshin frowned at her own realization, rolling it about in her mind, trying to marry the conflicting evidence before her. More was added when the other woman pulled forth a clay bottle and poured foul-smelling liquid on a scrap of cloth. Even four paces away, Greshin caught a whiff of it, salty, musty, with a hint of sulfur, it swirled in the wind, lingering like a lover's lips, then was gone. She stepped forward to speak with Kesh, but found her path blocked.

Ears laid back, shaggy mane jutting out like a thousand porcupine quills, dark eyes glimmering malice, the pony flared its nostrils and blew forth a snort of air that turned to mist in the death-hallow chill of the night. From the evil look upon the beast's face, it might as well have been steam or smoke as if a great dragon had exhaled the first warning fumes before loosing an endless river of fire. Hooves clomp-stomped, digging divots in the innocent ground, and in the grey world of shadow-flash, silverlight, Greshin noticed they were cloven.

_A Cave Pony. By Alamir's Sacred Cod Piece!_

They were originally bred by Dwarves to work in the mines. Raised in the damp darkness of the land's underbelly, these mongrel creatures were stronger than any two oxen, with dispositions akin to marauding ogres. Their odd feet made them nimble as pixies dancing on a forest's sigh, able to find purchase on narrow ledges. Nor did they require shoeing...mines were filled with chipped and jagged rock where pickax and shovel chiseled ever deeper. Some even said that Cave Ponies could see in the dark. In this moment, Greshin reckoned that was so. The murky, brown-black orbs appeared fixated upon her with unnerving accuracy, alight with cunning intelligence that glittered cold disdain.

“Velnius.”

Though spoken by Kesh, here was a different voice altogether. Gone was the raspy corrosion of before and in its place was a sing-song, liquid, burring kind of undercurrent of sound. More words followed, a melody of conversation in which the paladin spoke-hum a secret tongue and Velnius flicked his ears back and forth in rhythm with the rise and fall of her voice. It ended with the pony – after casting Greshin a final narrow-eyed, hunter's-aim glare – yielding ground.

_So familiar...._

Greshin willed her tired, old brain's time-frozen cogs and gears to turn. They did, albeit grudgingly. The words' meaning remained out of reach, but the language, strange, almost other-worldly in its litany clicked into place.

“Rover speech,” she half said, half questioned.

The other woman's hands, which had been busily tying the fetid-smelling rag about Velnius' halter, stilled but an instant, two heartbeats at most, enough for Greshin to discern that she was right. Whatever soaked the scrap of cloth, it clearly caused restlessness; the ill-tempered beast had begun to shift hoof to hoof as if itching for a gallop.

Strange that it was the only sound. Not one cricket chirped in admiration of the moon goddess' silver beauty; nary frog nor toad thrummed out the ancient echo of the Great Mother's heart, and no slap-crack, razor-slice whiplash shattered the uneasy armistice of quiet.

Suddenly Kesh was next to her, leather-gloved hand extended, palm up. In it was an acorn whose cap gleamed as if made of finest platinum, white-fire pure, sprinkled with the dust of stars. “Can you run?” The woman's voice was once more a groaning monody, an iron bell whose clapper had been frozen by time and corrosion, leaving Greshin to wonder how long it had been since the paladin had conversed with aught but horses.

_Run?_ _Do I look like I can run, you daft hooligan?_

Clearly Trinestra's ethereal rays had addled Kesh's pate. It was said that madness originated from too much exposure to moonbeams. Still, no good would come of being uncivil.

“I can go faster than a walk, aye, but I doubt you'd be calling it a run.” Greshin frowned at her companion, refusing to take the proffered nut and wondering if there was more than a passing resemblance between the two.

Kesh slid passed her, silent as a serpent on dewed grass. Both horse and pony followed in her wake, solid waves of muscle and sinew, pounding dirt and leaf. “You're going to chase after your runaway Cave Pony, Fury.” Shadowed eyes pierced her with a bladed glance. “Or choose whatever name you like. He'll ignore them all equally.” Kesh's head turned back toward the ominously quiet battlefield, where death held sway over land and air. “It'll cause enough distraction for me to get in position.” Once more the paladin held forth the strangely shimmering acorn. “Get to your lady, then cast this to the ground.”

Reluctantly, Greshin accepted the oak seed, feeling an arcane tingling in her palm, a pulsating vibration, steady, rhythmic, instantly syncing with her pulse. “What is it?” Wonder and fear added a quaver to her voice. Enchanted things were to be respected, the way you respected a Black Widow spider in her web or hive of bumblebees. They were all well enough undisturbed, but rile them up a bit and you'd find yourself in a world of hurt.

“A key.” Kesh pulled herself up upon the shaggy, as-yet-unnamed horse, bow slung across her shoulder, quiver at her hip. Unlike the Cave Pony, this creature was preternaturally calm, a flick of an ear, a quiver of muscle were all that betrayed any sense of urgency, despite that almost palpable tension which thickened the very air Greshin chewed.

_'Twould seem that riddles are all she speaks in._

“To where?” Greshin's words were tainted by the bitterness of frustration.

Dark, unreadable, eyes shifted in her direction. She felt their pressure, even if she could not make out their color or expression. Still, the paladin's answer contained the subtle spice of amusement. “Somewhere other than here.”

_Well there is that, now._

Still... “They'll never let me near enough to touch her.” Greshin knew that as sure as she knew her place and position in the world. “I'll get captured, sure as the night is black and your pony'll be killed.”

“No.” Kesh's face was unreadable, frozen, quiescent, eyes focused beyond the copse's edge. “By then, they will have other things to think about.”

Greshin shook her head, feeling moths flutter blindly seeking the light of understanding, but her thoughts would not spark, much less ignite with any degree of brilliances. “My lord – lady –” _How exactly should she address this woman?_ “I'm not sure I –”

Leaning down, dark eyes pale with moonlit shadows, glistening as though driven by the unseen currents of a lunar tide, Kesh interrupted, “Chase the pony.” Her words were methodically slow and spoken with the tone used by a patient mother. “Call him ‘Fury.’ Make a lot of noise.” She straightened, facing forward. “The rest will fall into place.”

Drawing a sack-cloth-midnight cloak over her body and raising a cowl of deepest shadow over her blonde locks, the paladin once more whispered in that odd, sing-song voice, a dancing pixie moving to music unheard by mortal man. Rover-Tongue was spoken only to other Rovers, and to their horses. It was never shared with outsiders, but Greshin had heard it as a child, when all the world was filled with wondrous beauty, and streams bubbled because they were trying to talk to her and Trinestra's moons followed her from place to place because she could always see them.

With a blink of her grit-sleep-lacking-weary eyes, she wrenched herself back to the moment, this moment. “Fury's” ears had abruptly pinned themselves backwards into spear tips of fur and flesh; hooves dug deep, gouging the earth; hot dragon breath snorted-spewed from flared nostrils, and without so much as a flick of the tail for warning the pony fled the safety of the trees at a canter, a rope dragging behind him like a fisherman's lure, mane sweeping back combing air, feet slicing down, carving ground.

_Oh dear._

Stumbling after the raging beast, Greshin owned that a bit of warning would have been nice and prayed that this plan had a bit more sanity than it seemed. She yelled the fell creature's name and sprinkled curse words on the beast's stone-hard, dwarf-stubborn noggin the way the butcher salted pork. For his part, Fury lived up to his name – though he never once acknowledged hearing it. Stray helms were catapulted through the air; fallen spears or pikes were snapped by well-aimed hooves. Death held neither fear nor reverence for the Cave Pony and bodies were no more sacred than sacks of rations; the demonic four-legged, smoke-snorting, tail-lashing fiend seemed to relish crushing skulls and hardtack equally well.

As predicted, guards came running. Greshin groaned inwardly. There were five of them, clanking, jingling, rattling spears and axes. They spread out wide, circled narrow, a noose with jagged, pointy teeth already tainted with the stain of blood.

“Fury!” she yelled. Actually it was more of a breathy squeal. Her wind was not so good anymore. “Please,” Greshin attempted to sound pitiful. “Don't hurt him.”

Three bucks and two kicks later and all five were trying to decide if their balls or backsides pained them more. One poor fellow had two fingers broke, at least, from a nasty bite.

“Sorry lads,” Greshin wheezed, and hurried past, or tried to. Time's inexorable erosion of her bones and muscle left her with little strength and less speed. Her joints ground together, metal gears lacking oil, clogged with an accumulation of dust, mold, and corrosion. And her breathing? A bellows at a smithy made less noise.

She tripped over a shattered lance, plunging downward into mud and splinters. Parchment-thin skin ripped on her palms; her dress caterwauled as it tore. Spying the remnants of the lance's tip, Greshin grabbed it up and used it to pry herself upward from the ground. Sweat rolled down her forehead to mix with dirt and gods knew what other filth. _Where is that little bastard?_

Her ears found Fury long before her eyes. The devil-spawn nether creature had already found more guards to torment. Their howls of agony, and colorful cursing gave her clear direction to her quarry.

For his part, the Cave Pony seemed content to pause and admire his work, ears flicking to and fro, catching starlight on their tips, eyes coruscating with reflected torch fire, mouth lazily chewing tufts of grass. The rope was a tantalizing trail of temptation trailing behind him, an unmoving snake upon the ground. Greshin knew this game. She'd played it with horses, cows and wayward children. She'd play it now because it was required for her role in this carefully scripted drama unfolding in front of an unpredictable, hostile audience, on a stage where they'd do more that hurl rotten vegetables at you if the performance wasn't up to snuff.

“Come on, Fury,” Greshin pleaded is a soft, butter-smooth, honey-promise whisper. “There's a good boy.”

A troop of guards were fast approaching, surly in their righteous anger, squishing through mud, clinking, plodding, half-jogging, weapons raised to fend off this dangerous foe. A full squad of ten, this time.

_Eponia be merciful,_ Greshin beseeched the goddess of horses.

From the corner of her watering eyes she espied Phineas' circle of well-plumed, overfed strutting peacocks as they closed in tighter. Mink lined capes over padded shoulders, painted shields that had seen blows from neither sword nor lance made it impossible for Greshin to catch even a glimpse of Her Lady.

_Damn their eyes._

She waved her hands above her head, catching the attention of the guards and then pressed both hands toward the earth, palms down, even as she snuck up behind Fury. The dirt and mud were cold as they oozed between her toes. Greshin had no notion of when she'd lost her shoes, somewhere twixt the wood and here.

Obviously having some sense of self preservation, the guards slowed their approach. Their whispered exchanges mixed with barks of laughter coming from the macabre, fire-lit circle, riding the cool night air, sounding more like the baying of hounds when they'd cornered the fox. Only the kill remained. Greshin focused on the whispers. She had to. Her heart would burst out of her chest from worry and fatigue if she thought of aught else.

“It's an old bat and a Cave Pony...”

“I ain't getting me nuts smashed for no one.”

“Amus almost lost his whole hand.”

“What is she doing here, anyway?”

“Corpse-picking, most like.”

“I hope she catches him up. I like me nuts, right enough.”

“Like the rest of us are wanting to be rid of ours.”

“I didn't mean that. I'm just happy with all me parts as they are, bum included.”

Greshin crept ever closer, the end of the rope almost within reach, a pale strand of gray against the darkened backdrop of land, just a hand's breadth more....

And then Fury huffed out a great blast of brimstone irritation before darting forward from canter to full-on gallop in a twinkling of his baleful eyes. He bowled into the cluster of men-at-arms with the force and effect of a heavy wooden ball in a game of skittles. The more agile dove sideways out of his path; those too slow, or clumsy were sent flying, pins wrought of flesh and bone scattered in random directions by a stocky brute that exhaled wrath and sweat resentment.

“Oh, please forgive me!” Greshin puffed. She bobbed her head in apology, for Fury not only knocked them aside, but made sure to step on thigh, calf and ankle, creating a sickening chord of squish, pop and snap amid the merrily chirping chorus of chirping crickets who applauded from hidden chairs of dewed grass.

Like a laden wagon rolling down a steep hill, the fur-covered minion of a demon king gathered speed. He set course, with preternatural accuracy, for the tether line of smooth-cut, slick-groomed palfreys; mounts for the mounts for the preening, crowing Speckled Sussex roosters that passed for noblemen.

_Sweet Eponia,_ Greshin prayed to the goddess once more, _watch over your gentler horses this night._

Further thought was truncated by a firm hand upon her wrist. Gloved leather, large, but not unkind in its grip, the hand belonged to a dark-skinned man with hair the inky dark of new-moon-midnight, cut short to his head. Though the background of his surcoat was uncertain in the ethereal lunar light, the stark white of the snowflake which adorned it gleamed as if lit by an inner spark of argent flame.

_Sir Lancelot, knight of High Queen Zuri..._

Greshin was suddenly grateful for her wildly disheveled hair that frazzled about on the wind and clung to her sweaty face. She was thankful, too, for the velvet veil of night which hid her features, else this man might well have recognized her.

“Sir!” The word tumbled out of her mouth before her sluggish wit could stem the landslide. Happily she'd dropped her head out of habit, giving her full view of his glittering spurs.

He answered in a voice covered by the cold steel of command, but built upon a foundation of rich compassion. “You mayn't be here.” Black button eyes stared at her, but Greshin dared not meet them. Though it had been years since they'd last met, it was possible he would recognize her.

On that head, she need not have worried. Fury struck the tidy line of riding horses, transforming them into a writhing, neighing, stamping serpent that reared and pulled against the tether. Hapless squires and pages tried hold fast the line and were rewarded for their efforts with sharp kicks and nasty bites as Fury galloped past. In the ebony sea of night Trinestra's light winked pale pearls on the palfrey's eyes, so terrified were they, straining against the frail strand of line which held them fast.

Lancelot's grip tightened like a wolf trap. “Woman. What have you done?” he demanded of her.

_Agreed to a rescue plan conceived by a madwoman, clearly._

“My-my Lord,” Greshin stammered and fell to her knees, once more feeling dampness soak through the layers of cloth, a creeping chill, the way the earth must feel to those freshly buried. “I beg forgiveness.” All the while she thought furiously, her mind zipping faster than falling stars, at least from her perspective.

_Whatever the paladin poured on that bit of rag. That's what must have done it._

She drew breath, still staring at his leather boots. “My idiot grandson, you see, I sent him for a new donkey, gave him all the coin I'd saved, knowing old Erc wasn't long for this world, him being seven and thirty. Well this morning Yan, me grandson, returns all proud, with that,” she gestured angrily at Fury, who had taken up the tether line in his mouth and torn it from the ground, setting the imprisoned horses free, “Said he'd found a nice man in a painted wagon who'd told him this fine pony could carry twice the load of a donkey and cost only half as much.” For good effect, Greshin spat on the earth. “As if that wretched creature is worth a brass farthing.”

The thud, pound, tromp of more booted feet approached, pounding like distant drums, and chainmail jingled like tiny bells. Greshin remained kneeling and sensed more than saw Lancelot stiffen.

“Be silent,” he hissed.

The parade of music stopped. Chancing a look up, Greshin saw four guards, clearly not in the livery of Queen Zuri. Big, burly bears of men, muscle and sinew, iron machines of blade and morning star, they had nary a strain of thought nor compassion amongst them.

“The King wants to know what ruckus is distracting his fun,” said the biggest of the four, a rumbled threat growling low beneath his polite words.

Releasing her wrist, Lancelot faced the interlopers. “And what fun might that be. King Charment ordered the Ice Queen's execution at dawn – nothing more.” Menace laced with contempt punctuated each carefully articulated word.

Hands slid to sword hilts, as Phineas' bear-knights prepared to show their teeth and claws. Narrowed eyes darted from one to another, then to the dark warrior, betraying the nervousness of bullies who feared they might have miscalculated their odds of winning. A short, broad fellow, with shoulders wide enough to balance the world on his back answered, “What King Phineas does between now and dawn is his own affair, Sarcen. You'd do well to remember that.”

The reference to Lancelot's race was inherently disrespectful, Greshin saw how the darker knight visibly stiffened, how his jaw tightened. She used the momentary drama to as a distraction, peering about. Just behind the unfolding tableau of veiled insults and innuendos disguised in the polite costumes of conversation, the Cave Pony, having scattered most of the horses to points unknown, had happily returned to munching grass, ears flitting to fore and aft as if searching the air for some sort of signal. She looked toward Her Lady. There was just enough of a gap between the gathered vultures disguised as blue-bloods for her to see Amira being removed from the whipping post; limp, bloody, her back a mass of mangled flesh – but in that brief instant, Greshin saw brown eyes blink and knew that Her Queen yet lived.

Then she disappeared from view.

_Alamir's blood!_ She thought, once more invoking the king of the gods, _Now what?_

It seemed Queen Zuri's man thoughts flew in a similar direction, for her barreled past the imposing, muscle-bound, bull-roaring knights who had confronted them with scarcely more than an absent push of his hand and a half-hearted shrug of his shoulder.

“What manner of madness has possessed your king?” Lancelot snapped, spinning 'round to face the men. Trinestra's silver fingers caused the snowflake on his tunic to come alive with fairy-dust sparkles and lightning bug flashes. “Speak.” Death, itself, tread softly behind the rumble of his command, and its inevitability was bound by unbreakable chains that carried echoes of that last, rattling breath. “I've sent a horse to the White Castle.”

Though Greshin could see neither the Lancelot's eyes, nor the faces of his opponents, she was acutely aware of the tension that pulled snare-wire taut, so tight, the very air seemed not to move, and even drawing a breath was impossible.

Nor was the dark knight finished....

“The High King trusted your liege to carry out the death sentence so he could go home to his wife, who – as you know – is in a quite delicate state, but I feel certain my message will bring them both, along with a full complement of soldiers e'er the hour passes. Mayhap you might wish to deter...King...Phineas from any further abuse.”

Greshin used the distraction to creep to her feet and move with spider-smooth motion toward the gathered murder of crows, squawking, squabbling in all their multi-colored plumage. Her hand tightened around the strange acorn; it quivered against her palm in answer. Whatever manner of magic lay within, clearly it functioned.

The knights had begun to argue. Lancelot yielded no ground in word or space, a living wall of integrity, armed with sword, shield and obdurate will. Beyond them, the cloven-hooved, baelfire-born spawn of rock and cavern and mine seemed to be mimicking Greshin's own strategy, casually ambling forward, toward the congregation of nobles, pausing to munch on a clump of grass here, there, chewing slowly. From the manner of the fell beast, it might well have been a fine summer day, all white cotton clouds and lush pasture and air so sweet it almost made you weep just to smell it. Only Fury's ears, flying forward and back, like dragonfly wings ready to lift him from the ground, gave any hint as to his true level of agitation.

All pretext of calm was quickly dispelled when two, poor men-at-arms attempted to capture the pony. One jumped out and grabbed the dangling rope, grinning in triumph, the prize looped around his hand. The other took position in front of Fury, ax out, ready to strike a fatal blow.

Fury backed up, kicked the rope holder full in the face, then trampled him down. Rearing up, he came down hard on Ax Man, snapping handle, neck, ribs in a series of lightning-fast, thunder-hard, cyclone-powerful kicks. The scene was noisy enough that it caused everything else to cease, argument, laughter, crickets, everything.

It was in the dreadful hush that followed that the owl's call came, a trilling tremolo that was carried on the night's winged breezes for miles, haunting as a hanged man's ghost passing over graves, terrifying as a banshee's wail. The warbled sound began low and pitched lower, and Greshin swore she heard her own name within it.

Fury must have heard his in it as well, for without a pulsebeat's hesitation, he pinned his spike-horn ears back against his skull, and lunged forward at full gallop, through two groups of warriors, and straight into Phineas' flock of nobles, once more transforming into a four-legged hurtling flapper ball, scattering human pins aside with unearthly force. And, oh, but they did go flying! Furs ripping, jewels dropping like leaden leaves, ornate swords and shields tumbling downward to become tangled in legs and silk cloaks. Fury never stopped, but ran clean around the circle, sending all the buzzards into flight.

_My Lady!_

She was there, naked, flat upon her mangled back. Standing above her, King Phineas held his manhood, such as it was, in one hand, surprise and shock, no doubt, causing it to lose some of its former glory. Nearby, like a shadow, stray dog, snake-in-the-grass, was Medrot. Greshin narrowed her eyes, bile rising in her throat. There had long been something slimy about the dark fae, something slippery as pond scum on rocks and treacherous as verglas.

Phineas pushed himself back into his trousers in a single motion. His lips moved, and he looked down at Her Lady, a coldness playing like frost and icicles about his lips before he turned away.

Rage quickly contorted his features into a mask of hideous cruelty, because Fury had not left, but was trotting boldly about as if daring the king and is pet fairy to take action.

“Someone kill that –”

The arrow through his skull truncated any further words he might have uttered. Time slowed for Greshin as she bounded forward, lungs burning with embers and pierced by red-hot daggers. The king sagged to his knees, frozen in every other respect, a marionette whose strings had been cut. Behind him, Medrot had begun to grin, torchlight bouncing off jagged black teeth; and clap his hands as if the end of a well-staged show had finally been reached.

Fury charged forward, but did not trample Queen Amira. No, the dreadful creature took a position over her that could only be described as protective. Eyes roved in all directions. Ears swiveled about at every sound. Greshin continued running toward Her Lady, finally realizing that Taarn had decided that there was something yet to be found within the Ice Queen.

As she approached, Phineas sagged inch by inch to the side, until he crumpled over, exposing the arrow's shaft to the full light flickering glow of the ground torches. It was black feathered with red, and had bits of red scattered along its length.

The word had scarce formed in Greshin's addled pate even as it was hollered out by Medrot at the top of the salau's worthless lungs.

“Orcs!”


End file.
